[Old Goat Racer]

Pulled the dist. out of the race car & noticed the gear worn razor sharp.
Shined a flashlight down the dist hole & the cam gear is worn as well. I have an 80 lb pump in the motor. What's going on & what is the fix?? Race day is almost here & I thought I was ready. Any ideas ??

[dean cummins]

not sure if I can help or not.could dist need spacer at block?
dist should seat against block,not against cam gear.

[guidos]

I had the same thing happen to me, too much oil pressure, how much pressure to you have cold...warm?

Mine took out the cam gear also, no more high pressure pumps for me, in fact it took out the bearing also due to all that metal from the two gears......I hope it is not the case with yours.

Mine would pin the 100PSI gauge when cold then fall back to about 70 PSI when warm at highway speed, and about 40-50 at idle.....I thought it was a good thing....That was about six years ago...redid the motor with a 60 PSI pump and never had a problem since.

I found out that it was wearing the gear by checking the timing using number one spark plug then switching to number six....they should both show the same timing but mine was off and I couldn't figure out why till I pulled the distributor and found the same razor sharp gears as you.

Good luck, I hope you found it in time to not cause any other damage!!

[Jack Gifford]

Both cast iron gears? I mean, not a situation like an iron distributor gear running on a steel cam (roller or other billet cam)?

Were you running the "extra insurance" of a tiny oil hole in the plug at the back of the passenger-side lifter gallery?

Gear wear is almost unheard-of with both Pontiac gears (distributor & cam). I've always been a little suspicious that some aftermarket cams don't have a gear with exactly the same hardness that a Pontiac cam gear has.

[jjscerbo]

I agree with Pontiacjack. Excessive wear is for a reason. The Dist. gear HAS to have lubrication with the 80LB pumps. A small orfice(.030) in the left valley plug should do it.

[Kenth]

How much play between gear and housing?

[fullauto]

Had the same thing happen on my 68 GTO. Dumb me rebuilt the distributor using the best parts from 3 distributors. It didn't dawn on me the about the shims on top of the dist. gear. I had about .080 play when the failure occured. It wiped out the new cam also. Spec was around .015 I think. I got a shim kit for a chev dist for about $5 ten years ago. Everything is still running today. I did replace the cam.

[PONTIAC DUDE]

Use the BOP gear. And yes check end play and side to side. This can cause the issue.

[Mr. P-Body]

When supplied by the factory, the 80 lb. pump (Ram Air IV applications) also used a cadmium-plated distributor gear. The supply of those dried up many years ago... But the factory DID know about the problem. This is why we've been drilling the oil gallery plug forever...

Jim

[Old Goat Racer]

Already had .030 hole in gallery plug. Dist. end play was almost .030, shimmed it to .06. Replaced 80 lb pump with a 60 lb. Replaced cam & dist. gear. Fired it up,
fingers crossed. Thanks for the input.

[JSAauto]

You can take some dykem blue or red and paint the dist gear. Run it and see where the running pattern is. Shim the dist housing where it sits in the block to raise the dist housing and get the dist gear pattern in the middle. This is the way the NASCAR guys do it. Also what Pontiac dood said too.